Until last Thursday, I had not met anyone who identified with New Labour. My friends include grumblers, hesitant supporters and the unconvinced, but no paid-up followers, nobody who regards Blairism as an unambiguous 'good thing'. This began to change two weeks ago, when I took a new job with a company which publishes Marxist classics, and more recent books and journals, several written from within the New Labour camp. You can imagine the conversations which I began to have, 'A friend of mine, she says they're not that bad, really, honestly. But I, I, I mean she says, that's just her opinion. Didn't they do something for the single parents? There was something they did. I'm sure it wasn't so bad. Honestly.' Last Thursday, as part of my job, on Guy Fawkes night, November 5th, I attended a launch in the House of Commons, for Mark Perryman and Anne Coddington's new book, The Moderniser's Dilemma.
To understand the gathering, it is necessary first to grasp the nature of the book, which we were there to plug. The Moderniser's Dilemma is a curious mix, of New Labour MPs, their hangers-on, and left intellectuals, many pro-Blair, others only sympathetic. Writers range from Gerry Hassan, an ultra-loyalist in Scottish New Labour, through members of Nexus, the Blairite think-tank, to modernisers, academics, and Kevin Davey, like Perryman a former Eurocommunist. Indeed the Communist Party connection is significant. Geoff Mulgan who works at the No. 10 Policy Unit was in the CP, and the most Blairite think-tank, Demos, was largely set up by former CPers. The language of the book is left-ish, but elitist, its tone set by Geoff Andrews's chapter, 'Shifting to the Bright - In Search of the Intellectual Left'.
The room was booked through Stephen Twigg MP's secretary, Richard Jarman. We have not met, but I can tell you that Jarman sounds clipped and precise down the phone, and that his (the secretary's) secretary wears a rather nice smart blue suit. On the way in, a group of us from my work almost walked into Joan Ruddock, another impeccably well-dressed formerly left wing MP. One of our party knew her from her days in CND, and tried to say hello. Joan saw us, waved her greetings, and ran into the nearest lift. We could not book the Photographer's Gallery, or any of the larger rooms, but we did succeed in hiring a smaller committee chamber, with space for about thirty people, who sat round a heavy long yellow table. The room was plush, richer, of course, than Hackney Wick where I work, but 'modern', furnished with chromes not leather, and almost disappointing as a result.
Who was there? Twigg himself, smiling like an embarrassed child, and looking round anxiously for members of his staff, Nina Fishman the social historian, two Young Fabians, clearly in their thirties, bald, and wearing sharp, heavy-dotted, flash suits, Mark Perryman for the authors, a rave culture expert wearing a football top, someone from Marxism Today, several other rent-a-think-tank intellectuals, and Anne Showstack Sassoon. The latter spoke first, making the original claim that Blair was a Gramscian, committed to uniting the nation behind the old goals of social democracy. Twigg followed up, reminding us that he was the one who had defeated Portillo in the general election, then blandly stating his assent with everything Anne had said, an assent which was echoed in turn by the Fabians.
Although everyone was addressed democratically, on strict first name terms only, there seemed to be something disingenuous about the greeting. One thing I quickly noticed was that there was a clear rank to the speakers. A proof-reader was there, held her hand up and tried to speak, but was not called. She was expected to defer to the intellectuals. Above the intellectuals were the authors, and above them, the Blairites and the MPs. Perhaps rank is an insufficient analogy. The meeting was a food chain, and we the listeners were there to provide ourselves to be gobbled up, sacrificed to the superior wit and insight of those above us, and above them, the politicians.
There were also topics which were clearly taboo. At one stage, one of the Young Fabians was asked what he thought of dissenters. He outlined what constituted good dissent, and bad. It was not a matter of the views expressed, but the method used. It was quite unacceptable to oppose the leadership publicly, by speaking out or voting against the party. On the other hand, it was absolutely fair to express the most radical disagreement with party policy, so long as that was done privately. Opinions were irrelevant, process everything. Stephen Twigg described how a good MP should behave, but offered no hints as to what a good MP should think. Even the intellectuals discussed Blairism as a process, this is what he does, this is how he succeeds. The purpose of what he does, the big picture, the goal, was taken out of the conversation, as if by an unspoken but agreed consent.
Several of those present clearly did think in terms of Blair's slogans, and filled them out using more catchwords, and emptier ones at that. One speaker explained that she liked New Labour because 'Blair obviously has so much respect for John MacMurray's work on community'. This seemed to me to miss the point. Blair has no respect for the phrase 'community', no more than he had for the Third Way, the Stakeholder Society, or Social-ism. Each was a slogan, a marketing ploy, to be used ecstatically for three months and then dropped - before the phrase could be filled out, and have any meaning in society. Other speakers, fortunately, held back on this language, indeed that withdrawal of their vocabulary, holding back from Blair's Full Monty, was the nearest most came to any thorough-going critique.
Not surprisingly, the majority of the views expressed were friendly towards New Labour. Yet around our lozenge-shaped table, occasional divergent views were spoken, but couched themselves in a language which could not itself be rejected. 'As an Asian woman, I must say how much I have enjoyed the government's new approach to tackling racism. But I would ask, do you think there should be more Asian woman MPs?' 'As a road protester ... ' 'As a Black man ...' Such divergence was tolerantly received, and tolerantly spoken. It was cosy, happy, New Labour criticism.
After an hour, Twigg left, keen to secure a seat for that evening's debate on the Jenkins Report and proportional representation. The suits followed, the assistants and the Fabians. As the room emptied, even the serried ranks of the intellectuals thinned, and the discussion finished early. What had I learned? From Twigg, that the limit of his vision was that he should aim to be 'a good constituency MP'. From one academic, that he was upset, because he hadn't been invited to dinner with Tony. Above all, I was impressed by the paucity of vision. If this was the intelligent left, as it had been billed, then my and my friends' sympathies will remain with the unintelligent, the inarticulate and the unconvinced.
